The True Meaning of Humanity
by Sarah Kathleen
Summary: AU-A story featuring a man seeking redemption and self-forgiveness, a desperate mermaid on the run, a man with a desire for ultimate supremacy, and an unlikely alliance between two worlds that do much better when they're on opposite sides of the battle.


_Disclaimer_: I own nothing related to the _Pirates_ franchise, and I'm making zero money from this bit of fun. I'm just playing with characters owned by others.

_Genre_: drama, action/adventure, fantasy, romance

_Summary_: A story featuring a man seeking redemption and self-forgiveness, a desperate mermaid on the run, a man with a desire for ultimate supremacy, and an unlikely alliance between two worlds which are most comfortable when they're on opposite sides of the battle.

_Rating_: PG-13/T for adult themes and some language. Should the rating change, I'll post it.

_Warnings_: Most definitely AU, replacing _At World's End_ in the PotC saga, because I was devastated when my Norrington was killed.

_Note:_ Here it is, after six years' hiatus-my attempt at reentering the writing world! This particular chapter feels a little forced to me, and I did all of my own editing, so I apologize for any stiffness or mistakes. Things should flow much more smoothly as they progress, and I allow myself more time to edit chapters before I post them (I'm trying to get this one and the replacement second chapter out within the next eight hours, not a simple task when you have mock court reports to write).

* * *

James Norrington, Admiral, had learned over the more recent years that there were many things that he had believed he'd known, but in truth, he hadn't known them at all. At present, the foremost example he had of that fact was his previously uncontested conviction that the cruelest feeling in the world was the heart-tearing pain of unrequited love, or the hollow feeling of failure and destroyed ambitions.

He knew now, however, that he had been wrong. The worst feeling in the world was to wake up with a headache.

Beginning his day with a head-cleaving pain was, without a doubt, the ultimate punishment for any misdeeds done in his lifetime, simply because it inevitably intensified and, with equal certainty, led to an even worse day. It also seemed that such days, without fail, ended with the most aggravating and time-consuming of tasks, prolonging an already unbearable day into apparent eternity. Even the knowledge of a fine bottle of scotch awaiting him at his little-used home and that in a short week he'd be back on the sea (and away from Port Royal and its poltergeist-like memories) did little to ease his ill temper, particularly when one of his captains returned to port with a dozen extra passengers, rescued from an island not far from where James himself had been rescued from a drifting longboat, and now the refugees had to be taken care of.

Gritting his teeth against the pounding in his head (which succeeded only in worsening the pain), Admiral Norrington stood before the crowd of bedraggled shipwreck victims. A few looked at him hopefully, but most of them looked simply traumatized, wounded and underfed. He could sympathize, having looked rather similar a few short weeks ago.

"Take them to the churches," he ordered one of the subordinates. "Most should be able to find lodgings through them."

The lieutenant hastened to follow orders, gesturing for the passengers to follow him. Watching them go, James frowned. "I understood there to be twelve refugees."

"There were twelve, sir," Captain Harris said grimly. He was a stocky man of average height, whose fierce bellow and stubborn jaw was belied by his easy-going nature. His wig hid the sun-bleached, fly-away blond hair that matched his easy disposition, but his tanned skinned remained as a visible testament to his dedication to his position. "Two of them disappeared as soon as we made port, a woman and a child."

_Naturally_, he thought grimly. By law, refugees were of little concern to the Royal Navy, but James had taken a certain amount of pride in providing what Fort Charles could spare to those rescued at sea. Lord Cutler Beckett, however, believed that such charity was a waste of resources. His hands tied, James had still found the orders easy to skirt simply by the lack of refugees since his instatement of command within the Company—most were quickly determined to be pirates attempting to pass as victims and subsequently imprisoned. The brig was nearly bursting. This was the first occasion James faced in which he could do nothing without deliberately flouting an order, and of course, it had to be the one occasion in which refugees—a woman and child, no less—went missing.

"Nonresidents are not our responsibility," he reminded Harris.

Without batting an eye, Harris, who had sailed with James since his own captaincy, replied, "I'll keep it quiet, Admiral."

"Thorough," James added lowly, "but brief."

"Aye, sir," the captain replied. "Shall I inform Lord Beckett of the accounted-for refugees?"

James leveled a jaundiced eye at his subordinate, bitter at the reminder that his improved rank meant little—Fort Charles, the one place other than his ship where he could ensure that logic, order, and decency ruled, was not truly under his command. The throbbing in his head intensified. "Must we inform Lord Beckett of the number of lines used to secure the ship as well?" he asked flatly, and Harris suppressed again.

"I should hope not, sir. I'll have my men search and send a report within the hour."

"Very good." Nodding his approval, James turned and made for the fort. Harris would manage, and during his wait James had a voyage to coordinate. Beckett wanted the majority of the fleet stationed at Port Royal to patrol the Caribbean, with the nominal intention of eradicating the region of pirates. James, however, was beginning to wonder just what, exactly, qualified one as a "pirate," and if the term might unintentionally apply to legitimate merchants who happened to not be employed by the Company.

Not that such mistakes were noted until it was far too late, of course. Through the men who had been at Fort Charles during Beckett's occupation, James had learned of two such incidents involving foreign merchants. Reportedly, they weren't flying colors of any kind to identify them as from their home countries, and so were mistaken for pirates and sank. The crew of the ship—there was only one—to do the mistaken sinking was made entirely of men loyal to Beckett; the two victim ships had had no survivors to corroborate the stories. James had his suspicions.

This aside, the orders remained: The majority of the fleet was to patrol for piracy, and the remainder was to escort Beckett himself to confront the _Flying Dutchman_ and her tentacled captain, a man (if he was a man) that James had no desire to meet again. Apparently, Davy Jones was best monitored in person, even with his heart held as ransom, and Beckett had no intention of assigning that particular task to anyone else.

As Admiral, James was bound to the flagship and therefore to Beckett. The only consolation this held was that it brought him in regular contact with Governor Swann. The older man had been decidedly displeased (to understate it) to find James returned without Elizabeth, and had immediately demanded that James use his position to do what he was able for his erstwhile fiancée. Since agreeing, James had found Governor Swann to be much easier to face, though he knew that he would have done the same even without the governor's request. Guilt and lost honor was what had inspired him to take the heart to begin with, and guilt and lost honor was making him regret that decision. When he reached his office, James slammed the door against the thought, determined to once again take up the battle of keeping it from his mind.

It was hours later, after Harris's search had turned up nothing save a chambermaid from the governor's manor claiming that one of her dresses had been stolen, as the sun was beginning to rob him of what natural light he had, that he paused in his cascades of paperwork and dug through one of the drawers for a flask of rum he kept hidden away, placing it in the dead center of the surface and surveying it as if it had dealt him grievous insult. He could no longer stomach the drink itself—the very odor made him question his control over his gag reflex—but he kept it as a reminder that he had yet to atone for all of his sins.

Men had died as a result of his relentless pursuit of Jack Sparrow, men who were better than Sparrow, better than James himself. Men with families and loved ones. He had resigned his commission in light of the realization that he had allowed a twisted sense of honor with regards to a pirate who had none—or, at least, the strangest notion of the quality James had ever encountered—to cloud his better judgment, and to overcome his duty and responsibilities not only to his men, but to the people under his protection. No commander, no leader, worth his station committed such a selfish mistake as disregarding his responsibilities. It had been sheer luck, idiot's luck, that had ensured Port Royal's safety during his harebrained scheme of warning Sparrow against Beckett. Now James was under Beckett's employ, and his list of sins seemed to have doubled, rather than shortened.

The pounding in his head nearly unbearable, James suddenly wished with an alarming violence that the liquid in the flask was a decent scotch. His touch with alcoholism during his days on Tortuga, however, had taught him that while he had no compunction with burying painful memories in the bottom of a bottle, he _did_ make a truly terrible drunk. He shoved the bottle in the inner pocket of his coat and moved for the supply lists, only to pause mid-reach at a hesitant knock on the office door.

He frowned at the offending portal, somewhat unsure whether he'd heard properly. Assuming he hadn't at the resulting silence, he made to return to his task, only to have the sound repeat itself. Dropping the list, he leaned back and studied the door, mentally daring the knocker to show himself. The mood he was in, James almost pitied the poor soul what he would find—almost.

He wasn't disappointed, but he _was_ surprised: The door opened to reveal not a hapless marine, but a small girl. She poked her head through the small crack she'd made, eyeing the room, with its large windows to take advantage of any natural lighting and sparse décor, with charts rather than paintings on the walls and little else. Her eyes, a striking sort of light green, fell on him.

"Are you Mr. Norrington?" she asked in the blunt manner unique to children.

"I am," he replied, rising and walking around his desk. At his positive response, the girl-child stepped into the office fully and promptly shut the door behind her.

His heart abruptly turned to stone and dropped like an anchor that had been severed from its chains. _Not another one._ It wasn't frequent, but family members of the men who had died—whom he'd killed with his recklessness—would come to him. Some would yell, curse his name, his heritage, and his position, but the others would thank him.

"_My dear John always said that if he had to die, he wanted it to be with honor."_

"_My papa always said you made it easy because of how brave you are."_

"_You changed my son for the better."_

It was worse than the screaming. With a level, determined look to her, this child didn't seem the sort to start berating him for dereliction of duty to his men. He had no interest in hearing platitudes about how wonderful a commander he'd been. "Where is your mother?" he demanded, hoping to pawn the child off on a parent who felt the appropriate amount of condemnation.

The girl blinked at him as if he had casually mentioned that fish were sprouting legs—that is, as if he were completely daft. "But I don't need to find my mother," she protested. "I need to take you to someone."

* * *

If there was one thing Cordelia knew to be true of humans, it was that their nature tended to be inherently contradictory. Having made a great study of human history and culture, she had noticed that, often, humans wanted what they could not have, and refused to be satisfied by what they _did_ possess. In the tale of the _Iliad_, for example, the Greek king, whatever his name had been, had cared hardly a wit for his wife until he no longer had her, and then he created such a fuss that an entire armada had been launched.

Looking out over the bay at Port Royal, Cordelia wondered if the human legend she had studied so briefly was going to be repeated. There were certainly enough ships to make the attempt, and if this Beckett person was the sort she suspected him to be, then he was certainly virulently nasty enough to do it. The only question was, over what? The heart of Davy Jones? While that was truly awful news for the humans, it meant little to her people: merfolk had no fear of Jones, only distaste for him, though his kraken was cause for concern if left unchecked. If he was launching his ships to find what she feared, however, then the merfolk had reason for a great deal of fear, and the rest of the world right along with them.

However, in the characteristic of perverse desire, she reflected, humans and merpeople really were not so different. Cordelia herself had always wanted the opportunity to walk amongst the humans, to compare what she studied to what happened on land. Now that she was forced onto land, she wanted nothing more than to return to the safety of her scrolls under the surface of the sea.

_No safety there,_ she reminded herself. _No safety at all until Gideon is stopped._

Beckett, though he was frightening in the unknown way of dark caverns and mysterious trenches, was little more than an obstacle to be overcome in her mind. A formidable obstacle, granted, but an obstacle nonetheless; she had never even seen him to have a face to fear. Even if he wanted to obtain the Curse, he could not wield it; only a merperson with the ability to transform could do so. Gideon, however, could use the Curse, and would not hesitate to do so, to the ruin of the world. More importantly to Cordelia, however, he was also holding her family hostage, demanding information on the Curse against their lives. In an attempt to keep her family alive and the Curse out of unworthy hands, she had fled her home.

It was during that time that she'd met Mr. James Norrington.

In exchange for saving his life, he had promised her that he would help her when called upon. Such promises were easy to make in the middle of the night during a desperate escape (desperate for her, at least, though he had no way of know that), but Cordelia was no fool. What sane man, human, merman, or otherwise, would keep such a blind promise? _An honorable one_, she reminded herself, but she had to wonder if adhering to it would make him less honorable and more foolish. Or perhaps both? Her honorable intentions of single-handedly attempting to save the entire race of merpeople were certainly foolish in the extreme: She was a scholar, not an adventurer. Extremely foolish.

"Delia!"

She jerked her head away from the open sea and back to the shore, where a small figure was waving at her, followed closely by a much taller one. Cordelia stood, her stomach lurching with sudden nerves, and stumbled her way across the beach toward the pair. Walking on land was difficult to adapt to under the best of circumstances, after being used to swimming with the currents; walking on land was even more difficult to adapt to after previously adapting to walking the shifting deck of a ship at sea. By the time she met them, Cordelia had been so absorbed in keeping her nose out of the sand that she forgot her nerves the slightest bit. Those nerves came crashing back as she came to a rather unsteady halt before a tall man in an intimidating uniform, who stared at her with a blank sort of shock.

Wiping her hands on her borrowed (_stolen…_) skirts, Cordelia had to admit that facing a bitter, bedraggled man on the beach of a cursed island had been much easier than facing a collected, if surprised, man who showed little emotion. Perhaps it had more to do with the fact that now, rather than offering help, she was requesting—no, _begging_ for—it.

After a moment's awkward silence, she spoke to the girl first. "Thank you, Jane. I knew you would find him."

The little girl grinned unabashedly. "Of course," she said. "I'm going to find shells."

"Stay near," Cordelia called as the girl ran along the beach. The child was much older than her age, unnervingly perceptive, and always in the most inconvenient of ways; just as Cordelia would rather have had a companion as a bulwark, Jane scampered off, leaving Cordelia with the austere human.

Turning back to the man in question, Cordelia took a bracing breath. "Perhaps you remember me, Mr. James Norrington," she said, shoving windblown hair from her face.

"You have me at a disadvantage, Miss Cordelia," he replied with remarkable sangfroid. "I had begun to believe that you had been a particularly convincing hallucination. Imagine my surprise when a young girl tells me, with no explanations, that she must take me to someone, and I find my mirage has followed me home."

That surprised a nervous laugh from her. "I would imagine that to be rather upsetting," she admitted. "I assure you, I'm quite real, though that may not be of much comfort to you."

"It at least vouches for my sanity." The quip seemed to be merely by rote as he examined her from head to toe. She scrubbed her hands against her skirt nervously once again: being forced to avoid salt water at all costs and fresh water being highly limited, she hadn't bathed in some time. The grime was a constant distraction in the back of her mind, accustomed as she was to being clean. Her dress was stolen, though he had no way of knowing that, taken from a home within the town by Jane. Her hair was loose and flying in bedraggled waves, forcing her to paw at her face periodically to clear her vision. Whatever conclusion of her he came to, however, was ignored for a simple question: "How did you escape?"

"Much like you did," she lied. It was to her advantage that he didn't know her in the least—around those who _did_ know her, she was an abominable liar.

Or perhaps he was more perceptive than she gave him credit for. "I find that difficult to believe, Miss Cordelia," he said, his tone nearly disappointed. She shifted uneasily.

"Perhaps we might exchange tales of daring escapes another time," she said in an attempt at easy humor. "I have things I need to discuss with you."

Mr. Norrington raised one brow. "'Exchanging tales' is rather generous of you, given that you know mine already," he pointed out. Instead of pressing, however, he turned and crooked an elbow at her. _Offering his arm,_ she reminded herself. _Common in English-human culture._ Cordelia rested her hand on his arm, so lightly that she barely felt the fabric against her fingers. "Perhaps, rather than stories of survival, you would be so kind as to tell me why I've been summoned."

The unspoken words, _to_ _a remote bit of beach outside of town for unknown reasons_, hung in the air, and Cordelia knew that the time to attempt at saving the situation, of giving it as much normalcy as she was capable, was at hand. "I told you," she began nervously, "on the island, that there would come a time when I would need your help." She hesitated, unsure of how to go on, and Mr. Norrington stopped, turning to face her.

"I assume this is that time, then," he concluded, and Cordelia nodded, knotting her fingers together.

"I need a place to stay, for myself and for Jane. I have no care," she assured him quickly, "to be an inconvenience to you in the least. I have specific goals I need to accomplish here in Port Royal, and as soon as I have, I'll go."

He eyed her with mild incredulity. "Only lodgings?"

Cordelia bitterly wished that she'd made more of an anthropological study of human culture. Had she crossed some social norm? Committed some offense? "Lodgings," she admitted, her tone almost hedging. "Food, if possible, particularly for Jane."

"I see," he replied, betraying nothing. "And just what goals do you hope to accomplish in Port Royal?"

Her stomach dropped to her toes. "Perhaps it would be best if you didn't know," she confessed, and he raised a single brow at her yet again.

"That is not a reassuring statement, Miss Cordelia."

Beginning to knot her fingers together again nervously, Cordelia gave a small shrug. "I can only be truthful, Mr. Norrington, not reassuring," she confessed. "I _can_ assure you, however, that I have no intention of harming any human in Port Royal but one."

His eyes sharpened. "And just who," he demanded, an edge to his tone, "do you intend to harm?"

"Cutler Beckett."


End file.
